Disclosure Day: Why Steven Spielberg's new sci-fi film matters in today's world
Steven Spielberg goes beyond serving sci-fi drama with his new film, Disclosure Day. He opens up a vital conversation. Watch the end closely, and you'll know.
(The article contains spoilers about the film Disclosure Day)
"Listen." Emily Blunt delivers a single word facing the audience and the screen abruptly goes black. Steven Spielberg's new film, Disclosure Day, ends on that note.
It is quite unlike how the filmmaker does things. Steven Spielberg is known to explain, while in Disclosure Day he leaves a lot unsaid. It is a film that has left many viewers confused – some feel Spielberg has just made his weakest film yet, many others insist this film will age well. No Spielberg film has perhaps been as divisive as Disclosure Day.
SCI-FI SAGA DIGS DEEP
Steven Spielberg's latest is pitched as a sci-fi thriller – a genre the filmmaker literally shaped for new-age commercial cinema with such gems as Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, Minority Report, Jurassic Park and the Indiana Jones films, just to name a few.
In Disclosure Day, Spielberg and his frequent screenplay collaborator David Koepp keep the stock tropes coming in through the film's 145-minute runtime. There's alien and UFO in the package, of course, as well as a spectacular car-and-train chase. There's a scheming corporate boss trying to lay his hands on government secrets, and the US government trying to hush up a decades-old conspiracy. Spielberg's signature 'family home' finds space in the narrative, too, though in an unusual way.
Yet, Disclosure Day aims to be different from your regular Spielberg sci-fi, and that's not necessarily because of the film's languid pace.
“Disclosure Day is a movie about misinformation and the challenge of finding truth in a culture when powerful people have tools to blur the lines of fact and fiction, of what is real and unreal, in service of protecting and advancing their agendas,” Spielberg said in a statement shared with India Today exclusively.
Somehow, more than any of his sci-fi hits, that line brings to mind Spielberg's 2017 political drama, The Post, starring Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks. Like that film, Disclosure Day is about an obsessed mission to uncover truths hidden by governments from citizens.
Here's what happens in Disclosure Day, in a nutshell: Cybersecurity specialist Dr. Daniel Kellner (Josh O'Connor) lays his hands on extraterrestrial technology and files that detail human contact with aliens, starting from the Roswell incident of 1973. Colin Firth as Noah Scanlon, head of the corporation from where Kellner stole the files, not surprisingly bays for his blood. The government wants to keep the alien truths hushed up, and Kellner is soon branded a foreign spy. He finds an unlikely ally in Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt), a Kansas City TV meteorologist.
The film talks about the idea of intelligent life existing elsewhere, too, beyond Earth, and what would happen if we came to know that powerful forces were aware of the fact and hid it from the rest of the world. Would we be ready to accept the fact? Would we be willing to accommodate an alien way of thinking?
TOLERANCE IS THE MESSAGE
So, where does the film's silent message – one that pertains to listening – fit into all this? You'd find the answer in the final sequence, when the government finally admits to the world that they had hidden the truth about aliens, and that they did capture one at Roswell. The alien is wheeled in for all to see, and it whispers something in Kellner's ear.
We aren't let in on what the alien said, it isn't important. What the scene conveys is humans have finally learnt to listen to voices that may or may not align with our thinking. Because even the faintest of voices have a right to be heard.
In a world where people are becoming increasingly deaf to every other opinion but their own, Disclosure Day asks its audience to listen. Steven Spielberg, mainstream maestro who habitually keeps redefining popular cinema, just reminded us we're fast forgetting that basic etiquette, at a time when the world needs more conversations.
(The article contains spoilers about the film Disclosure Day)
"Listen." Emily Blunt delivers a single word facing the audience and the screen abruptly goes black. Steven Spielberg's new film, Disclosure Day, ends on that note.
It is quite unlike how the filmmaker does things. Steven Spielberg is known to explain, while in Disclosure Day he leaves a lot unsaid. It is a film that has left many viewers confused – some feel Spielberg has just made his weakest film yet, many others insist this film will age well. No Spielberg film has perhaps been as divisive as Disclosure Day.
SCI-FI SAGA DIGS DEEP
Steven Spielberg's latest is pitched as a sci-fi thriller – a genre the filmmaker literally shaped for new-age commercial cinema with such gems as Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, Minority Report, Jurassic Park and the Indiana Jones films, just to name a few.
In Disclosure Day, Spielberg and his frequent screenplay collaborator David Koepp keep the stock tropes coming in through the film's 145-minute runtime. There's alien and UFO in the package, of course, as well as a spectacular car-and-train chase. There's a scheming corporate boss trying to lay his hands on government secrets, and the US government trying to hush up a decades-old conspiracy. Spielberg's signature 'family home' finds space in the narrative, too, though in an unusual way.
Yet, Disclosure Day aims to be different from your regular Spielberg sci-fi, and that's not necessarily because of the film's languid pace.
“Disclosure Day is a movie about misinformation and the challenge of finding truth in a culture when powerful people have tools to blur the lines of fact and fiction, of what is real and unreal, in service of protecting and advancing their agendas,” Spielberg said in a statement shared with India Today exclusively.
Somehow, more than any of his sci-fi hits, that line brings to mind Spielberg's 2017 political drama, The Post, starring Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks. Like that film, Disclosure Day is about an obsessed mission to uncover truths hidden by governments from citizens.
Here's what happens in Disclosure Day, in a nutshell: Cybersecurity specialist Dr. Daniel Kellner (Josh O'Connor) lays his hands on extraterrestrial technology and files that detail human contact with aliens, starting from the Roswell incident of 1973. Colin Firth as Noah Scanlon, head of the corporation from where Kellner stole the files, not surprisingly bays for his blood. The government wants to keep the alien truths hushed up, and Kellner is soon branded a foreign spy. He finds an unlikely ally in Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt), a Kansas City TV meteorologist.
The film talks about the idea of intelligent life existing elsewhere, too, beyond Earth, and what would happen if we came to know that powerful forces were aware of the fact and hid it from the rest of the world. Would we be ready to accept the fact? Would we be willing to accommodate an alien way of thinking?
TOLERANCE IS THE MESSAGE
So, where does the film's silent message – one that pertains to listening – fit into all this? You'd find the answer in the final sequence, when the government finally admits to the world that they had hidden the truth about aliens, and that they did capture one at Roswell. The alien is wheeled in for all to see, and it whispers something in Kellner's ear.
We aren't let in on what the alien said, it isn't important. What the scene conveys is humans have finally learnt to listen to voices that may or may not align with our thinking. Because even the faintest of voices have a right to be heard.
In a world where people are becoming increasingly deaf to every other opinion but their own, Disclosure Day asks its audience to listen. Steven Spielberg, mainstream maestro who habitually keeps redefining popular cinema, just reminded us we're fast forgetting that basic etiquette, at a time when the world needs more conversations.
